I turn around, walking back the stairs.
A rat in a corner is the angriest creature on the planet, my father’s voice rasps in the back of my head. Does that make him the most powerful?
Of course not. A vulnerable man is an angry man. Both are weak.
I snarl and punch a wall.
As I step into the library, Cassandra is walking down the stairs. She’s wearing a white shirt and black underwear. It’s one of those sights that’s hard to reconcile with the violence of my life. It’s one of those things that should only be possible in a dream.
She notices me when she’s at the bottom step. Her hand clings onto the handrail, her movements suddenly a lot less certain. I remind myself that she’s a virus, but she doesn’t look the part now. She looks soft, innocent, transparent.
“I thought you had left,” I say. Her body sways slightly until she leans against the handrail.
“I did, for a short while,” she says. “I heard a noise. Is it what I think it was?”
I hesitate, then nod. “Yes, it was.”
There’s no need to be coy. The sound of a gun would be unmistakable to the daughter of a Mafia don. She’s no idiot.
She gazes down at her feet. Her hand glides down her black hair. When she looks up at me, there’s something moving behind her eyes that could be fear or hope.
“Is someone dead?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say again.
“Is it my father?”
I run my finger over my face, where the Balducci lieutenant’s gash was. Her logic makes sense—I want to hurt her father and I just made it clear that I thought she was gone—but it doesn’t settle right in my mind. Somewhere, the thought that I’d give her a chance to say goodbye is hidden behind all my other ruminations. I find it and discard it. I don’t owe her anything. I’ve fucked dozens of women without getting attached to them—the only difference with this one is that the blood that runs in her veins is blood that I desperately want to spill.
“No, it wasn’t your father,” I say. A breath escapes out of her, her shoulders relaxing.
“I want to see my daughter. When can I see her?” she asks.
I tighten my grip on myself.
I don’t owe her anything.
I’m busy annihilating everything her father thinks he deserves.
She’s the enemy.
She’s the vulnerability.
I let out a slow breath. “Tomorrow.”
The answer comes out on its own. I intended to give an excuse, but the answer comes out just as easily as the bullet that killed the lieutenant.
Cassandra rushes over, flinging her arms around me. As she hugs me, there’s a numb shock over her exuberance and a sharper shock that I didn’t have any instinct to defend myself. The numbness starts to fade, replaced by a warmth that feels downright destructive.
I pull away from her, grabbing her wrists to push her away. “Just be ready to go tomorrow. I have a lot of shit going on.”
There are flecks of blood that have transferred from my shirt to hers. It should be the only thing catching my attention, but there’s also a faint outline of her nipples showing through the shirt.
I cross my arms over my chest, looking back at her face. “Go put on more clothes.”
“All the clothes you insisted I wear are too fancy for walking around the house,” she retorts.
“I don’t care.”
She rests her hands on her hips. “God, all I do is show some gratitude that you’re going to fulfill your side of the deal and you act like I proposed to you. I know you have to act like a badass in front of your men, but right now it’s just the two of us. You don’t have to act like a hug is a death sentence. It’s just a hug.”
“I’m not acting,” I say. “I’m not upset. You just need to remember your place in this deal.”
She snorts. “My place? Oh right—on my knees in front of you in the shower?”
I grit my teeth, trying to block out the memory of her ass, her soft lips, her moans. “You know what I mean.”
She reaches forward, her hand cupping the side of my face.
“I’m happy that I get to see my daughter,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be any more than that. If you can accept that, you should come to the kitchen with me. We can have a drink together.”
Her hand drops away. She walks north, heading toward the kitchen. I watch her hips sway.
Then I follow her.
We settle in the library. The collection of books in this room was started by my great grandfather. This is insignificant in every way except seeing Cassandra in the middle of it, holding onto her glass of whiskey.
She plucks one of the books off the shelf. “I’ve heard this one is good. Mary Lionel was a fantastic journalist.”
“She goes into a fair amount of detail about the corruption within the music industry,” I say. Sitting in one of the rustic red chairs, I rest my glass on the armrest. “But I know you have higher ambitions than that. How is that going for you?”
She sips from her drink. “Great.”
“You’ve been going out a lot. Not always the typical nine-to-five hours either. I’d assume your investigations are going well, but I know you wouldn’t be able to get any information out of the people who know the most about the Bratva.”
“What makes you think that’s what I’m doing when I’m gone?” she asks. She stands on her tiptoes to put the book back. As she stretches, the shirt creeps up, drawing my attention to the tempting slice of pale skin it exposes. “Maybe I’m watching every movie in the theater. I have plans to visit one of my high school friends tomorrow—do you think I’ll question her about the Mafia?”
“You may be going out tomorrow with a friend, but I doubt you do that often.” I take a
